(JNS) Lebanon has once again reiterated its position: Palestinian refugees will not be granted citizenship. While proposals circulate in Beirut to improve Palestinians’ access to work permits, property ownership and residency rights, full naturalization remains firmly off the table.
This refusal is not merely bureaucratic hesitation but reflects Lebanon’s political DNA and, more broadly, a regional approach shared across the Arab world.
Lebanon’s nationality law is rigid, anchored in its sectarian power-sharing system. The last official census effectively froze the demographic balance between Christians, Sunnis, Shi’ites and Druze.
As Jacques Neriah, a Middle East analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JNS, “Lebanon has a severe law of nationality mainly because of sectarian tensions. The last population census dates back to 1932 and nothing has changed since. The property between the different communities has not changed. This statistic is sanctified and nobody dares to touch it.”
The fear is simple. Naturalizing almost half a million Palestinian refugees and another million-and-a-half Syrian refugees...
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